I Burn to Ash in My Love for Yours to Bring Me Back
by DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: Marion can't find her inner flames after she spent seventeen years burning in despair so close and so far away from Oritel. And although they're finally in each other's arms, the emptiness inside her persists. They've had their focus on looking after their kingdom and their daughter for weeks now, but it's time they take care of each other. Part 2 of "Creatures of Fire and Crowns".


**A/N: Somehow I managed to get a strong thematic connection between two smut pieces so now I have a series. This would mean more if read after the first part but it can still stand on it's own.**

The sight of their enormous soft bed almost made her weep in relief after the exhaustion of the endless day they'd had. She just wanted to crawl under the plush covers and into Oritel's welcoming embrace and fall asleep with his arms wrapped around her as the only thing that existed in the world. Nothing less, nothing more. Only his love enveloping her now that he could finally touch her again and keep her out of the reach of all the problems trying to sink their claws into them and drag them out of each other's arms, separate them again when they'd only just been reunited.

"Marion," Oritel's hand on her arm stopped the thoughts in her head and she turned to look at him, for the bed meant nothing if her weren't in it. She could only rest when his skin was on hers to be her armor against the nightmare she had to face every night when her duties weren't keeping her brain too preoccupied for it to be able to invade it. The heat of his body was the only thing that kept her warm against the chill of the night's thoughts when all the issues they were handling one by one during the day merged into one formless monster of darkness with the only purpose of sticking its cold fingers into her mind as if pushing icicles in it and poking around until it made her bleed and weep.

"Oritel," she stepped closer to him, pressing herself into him when she saw her own worries reflected in his eyes and the feeling of her body against his seemed to ignite something in him. A fire in his eyes that was achingly familiar as she'd been swallowed in it for years, his touch the only thing that could extinguish it but she'd been impossible for him to reach, burning in vain with only exhaust fumes settling inside her to replace the flames she was using up and the memory fell heavy in the pit of her stomach.

He drew her into a kiss and she held on to him as his breath filled her to give new life to the love burning inside her. She could feel tears springing to her closed eyes just at the thought of letting go or even pulling away from his lips as they'd kissed before but not after they'd gotten to breathe once again. He'd kissed the top of her head and she'd kissed his hand before having to let go of it and get dressed back into the royal attire she'd worn before the battle suit had practically become one with her when his fingers hadn't been able to reach her and peel it off. And they'd had no strength to get to undressing each other when she'd barely been able to summon enough energy to power her magic and get dressed in the morning and he'd had trouble keeping his eyes open for long enough to see her hair falling out of the hairdo, his hands just barely moving through it when she'd crawled in his embrace, and they'd fallen asleep content that they didn't have to do anything else.

Her fingers trembled as she found his belt, for she could remove it in seconds but the order was wrong. His crown had to be the first thing she got rid of. It always was so that she could have her husband to herself only when he wasn't the king of the realm. Yet, she couldn't raise her hands to remove its weight from his head as it was the only thing keeping them grounded in being the king and queen of Domino once again. They were who they'd been before, and that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted them to get back what they'd lost when they'd been spat out of time in the trap of Obsidian.

Oritel cupped her cheek, lifting her face towards him when he sensed her hesitation–she was more holding on to his belt rather than trying to unfasten it–and deepening the kiss, trying to fill the emptiness inside her with his love. It only made her awareness of it more acute, though, when his tongue entered her mouth, allowing his desperation to spill inside her lungs and drowning her in what she'd tried to bury in her mind during the weeks they'd spent fixing what was left torn apart in their kingdom and attempting to do the same with their hearts but it hadn't worked when their attention had been elsewhere and not on each other. And the need flowing from him down her throat was a string of constant reminders of what had been taken from them for seventeen years.

Seventeen years the people of Domino had spent without breathing. Seventeen years their daughter had grown without knowing love from them while the other one had been robbed of her body and life much like them. Seventeen years she'd spent agonizing in the flames of her desire to be touched by him that had only used up her will and determination as she'd remained unsatisfied and ever emptier, her love burning out when it couldn't reach him.

She pulled away, gasping to get some air into her lungs as the void inside her was already vast enough. She needed to fill it, close it, stitch herself back together and hope the scars wouldn't be too repulsive with the ugly reminder of the gaping hole that she'd harbored inside her. But she couldn't do it alone. She still had the life she'd had before, frozen in time as she'd been with the years she had left trapped inside her like she'd been trapped in Oritel's sword, but her fire was flickering out as her passion had drained out of her, leaving her ready to crumble into a pile of dust under the crushing weight of what kept happening in her mind even now that they were supposed to be free to touch each other and love like they had before.

"Use your magic," Oritel urged when she tugged blindly and helplessly at his clothes, losing the battle against them as she couldn't remember how to get past them so that she could feel him. The memories of being encased into the cold steel of his sword were the only thing left in her head, spreading and falling over her mind like a curtain of darkness that covered her as she lost all other parts of herself and she couldn't reach the knowledge how to get him naked just like her heart couldn't beat with her love for him when it was squeezed inside the metal cage in her head. "I want you," Oritel said, a distant growl in his voice like a beast that he could just barely keep caged so that it wouldn't eat her, the rumbling hunger in him coming through in his touch all over her body that was obstructed by her clothes which only seemed to feed his eagerness to rip them off of her so that he could press his erection in her bare skin.

"But..." That wasn't what they'd done before and she needed something normal, something familiar to anchor her old self in the present so that it wouldn't slip through her fingers. And using magic would only suck out more of her, more of who she'd been and throw it into the fire when she already had too little left of her previous strength. They'd been deprived of life and motionless but just because they'd been pulled out of the flow of time didn't mean that they were the same people. They couldn't be no matter how hard she wished for it, and she no longer knew how to be a wife to her husband, no longer knew how to want him without getting sucked into the agony of being unable to have him, no longer knew how to love him when she didn't have anything to give with the emptiness filling her heart instead of the passion she'd once held for life and for love.

"I want you," Oritel repeated as he touched his forehead to hers, his nose pressing against hers and his arms wrapped around her to allow his love to sink inside her and start gathering there like a small lake of liquid fire just waiting to swallow her whole. It was so different to be consumed in his passion since it was usually tamer, complementing the fiery desire inside her and burning slowly to keep them warm after they were left naked and exposed by her own flaming want. His need was endless now, fueled by the years of torturous separation that had somehow left him fuller of love for her that was bursting out of him and she wanted to drown in it instead of in the coldness of the hollow inside her.

She kissed him again, letting herself soak up all the need and want springing from him to power her magic and it wrapped around them, stripping them of their clothes and leaving her even more helpless when his hands on her were the only thing that kept her whole. She moaned in his mouth when his skin covered hers, his flesh pressing into hers to free her mind from the memories of separation and let her heart relax, rested with the knowledge he could touch as much as he wanted, every part of her, and with the promise that he would. He wouldn't leave an inch of her that was not covered in the sensation of his mouth and touch on her being.

A squeak left her when his hands slid over her sides and down to the back of her thighs and he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs and arms around him as he swallowed the sound and let him carry her to the bed without breaking the kiss, his mouth on hers the only thing keeping her breathing, making her breasts press harder into his heated skin and it burned so pleasantly against her flesh that always felt chilled after she'd been freed from his sword it nearly distracted her from his lips.

He laid her down, his skin barely leaving hers so that he could crawl on top of her but it cut through her with the vicious hunger to feel him constantly and the burning fear that he'd disappear, leaving her only with the wishful thinking and the cruel illusion that made her breath hitch, shaking her to the core and threatening to disintegrate her. He was all over her again, though, his mouth on her neck to infect her blood underneath with more need pulling at each and every part of her being and bringing all the feelings she was keeping buried to protect herself to the surface and his hands marking her skin with the all-consuming despair of being kept from feeling it for years, feeling her.

His touch was roaming her body, passing over her skin too quickly for it to be sufficient, and his lips kissed her skin only to move to another spot before she could feel his love sinking deep enough inside her to bring to life her own that had been drained from her soul, leaving every inch of her burning with the need to feel him when he was all over her but his caresses were far too short-lived in his attempt to compensate for all that time his muscles had been frozen only inches away from her flaming need for him, leaving them both in agony. It only lured more of her unsated desire out and it was taking over her body, swallowing her flesh in feverish heat while her core remained empty for the memories of being kept away from him to settle inside her like she was the new cozy home they planned to never leave.

His hand slid between her legs to find her soaked as she was drowning in her despair to feel his touch and only his touch, like it'd been before, unstained by the knowledge that he'd been so close that she'd felt his presence but the feeling of his hands on her had been lost to both of them for so many long and merciless years. His fingers moved over her clit like they'd once had, knowing just how to press and rub against her to make the moans fall from her lips. His touch sped up as his kisses slowed down now that her body was reacting in the familiar way, responding to the love he was caressing into her skin with her own, and she was ready to give everything she had left until even the empty shell of her crumbled in pieces as they were finding each other once again.

He bit at her collarbone, tearing a groan from her, the pain running through her like a lightning, frying her brain and her nerves to empty them of the memories of what they'd been forced to endure kept away from each other when they'd been so close. He was close enough to sink his teeth into her skin now like a wild beast and never let go of her. And that ferocity was a promise, not a threat. He knew just how she felt and he was swearing to her, sealing his word right there in her flesh that he would never let her feel alone again. He was marking her his because she was–and he was hers–and not because he was desperate to make her so. She'd always been his and that was what had kept her burning, what kept her giving into him even when she was afraid she had nothing left to give. She still had herself–empty and scarred as she was–and that was all he'd ever wanted. He wanted her even when there was no passion inside her, and she'd be happy to give him every last piece of herself. It would only leave her dissolved in his love and she couldn't imagine somewhere better to be.

He pushed her over the edge, plunging her into pleasure that flooded her mind, sweeping away the fear that was holding her back and igniting her own desire that had been buried under a thick layer of frost melting and extinguishing it every time she'd tried to revive her inner flames. It burned through her, purging the sensation of having her soul split into two that had left her with a bleeding wound gushing agony over every flicker of life and hope from her being. It was no more when the fire of his love brought out that of hers and left the past just a measly heap of ash at their feet. And she was no longer on her knees, cowering and weeping, when her hand was in his and she was on her throne as the queen of his heart with the power he was giving her.

Oritel entered her, making her cry out at the shock of the feeling of fullness. Despite the long time that had passed, it was just as familiar as before and it was a very welcome confirmation of what he'd showed her. They were together, joined in one, and any fear of separation was a fading memory.

She pulled him into a kiss, reveling in the feeling of his oxygen filling her lungs and igniting the passion she'd thought was long gone. Full of his love as she was, she could spread her wings of fire, the flames burning brighter and higher than they ever had before, for they'd been reborn, their love transcending all the fear, pain and despair that had been carved into them in the years when the only thing that had touched them had been freezing loneliness leaving traces behind on their hearts. Traces scorched away by their shared love that kept the warmth of life woven inside it.


End file.
